“My uncle,” Jazz said. “Look, he’s dead, which doesn’t matter because he was sort of a jerk, okay?” Another switch-up. The guard was expecting a sob story. Oh, my beloved uncle is dead and he always wanted me to have his collection of rare Portuguese pencil erasers! Please, sir, let me in! “No one liked him. He was a tool. But the problem is that he had this rare comic book collection, see? And my mom is on her way here right now to get it.” Now he’d brought the mom in—the guard would be tracking back to caution, so Jazz had to move quickly, establish the lie, the narrative.
“She’s a drunk,” Jazz said. He was thinking “junkie” originally, but for some reason drunk seemed to work better. It was less dramatic and so more believable. “And if she gets here and gets those comics, she’s just gonna sell ’em for a bunch of money and buy more booze.”
“So I let you in and you’re gonna save your mother from herself, is that it?” Sarcastic. Incredulous.
“I just want to change the lock,” Jazz said. He held up a key and a small padlock, bought not long ago at the hardware store. “There’s like two thousand comic books in there. There’s no way I could haul them out. And hell, the rain would ruin ’em. I just want to change the lock so that she can’t get in. And then maybe my sister and I can get her back to the treatment place next week and we can deal with all of this later. I’m just trying to buy some time, you know?”
The guard snorted. “And maybe cherry-pick the most valuable comics while you’re in there?”
“I wouldn’t know which ones to take,” Jazz said, with complete earnestness. “You can come with me if you want. Come watch. I’m just gonna swap one lock”—he held up the key—“for another.” He held up the padlock. “It’ll take five minutes.”
The guard hesitated. “I can’t leave my desk.” Relief. He doesn’t have to make a personal choice—he can just fall back on the rules.
They follow their rules. They worship their rules, Billy said. And that’s their downfall, Jasper. Because we don’t give two tugs of a dead dog’s tail about the rules.
“Then screw you!” Jazz yelled, suddenly boiling over with anger and exasperation. He leaned down to let the guard see his face for the first time, a face screwed up with pain and rage, a few hot tears wicking from the corners of his eyes. “Screw you like everyone else!”
Set them up. Let them think they know the rules of the conversation. They’re in power. You’re the supplicant. Let them think all they have to do is brush you off.
Then change it up. Suddenly. Starkly. Get them off their asses and out of their comfort zones.
He thumped the heel of his palm against the glass and then spun away from the booth, stalking off, then whirling around to scream, “It’s on you! When she’s passed out in some alley in Brighton Beach, it’s all your fault!” before walking farther into the darkness. Jazz didn’t know where or what Brighton Beach was, but he’d heard someone on the task force mention it.
“Hey! Kid!” the guard shouted, his voice different now. Bewildered. Maybe a bit hurt. No one likes to be yelled at. Especially by someone who mere moments ago had been so pliable and pitiable.
Jazz spun around again and shot the double-bird at the guard. It was a calculated risk. But usually someone who’s trying to con you won’t flip you off. Not on a conscious level, but somewhere beneath that, the guard would now actually be a little more inclined to believe Jazz.
“Kid!” the guard shouted again, now just a tiny bit desperate. Jazz took two more steps into the darkness, then stopped. He waited a moment, then turned around, assessing the distance to the guard as though it were laced with acid pits and vipers.
“What?” he shouted back, aggressive. Accusatory.
Even from here, he could detect the slump of the guard’s shoulders, the sense of defeat.
“Don’t steal anything!”
And the gate rumbled as it slid open.
Jazz resisted the urge to fist-pump, and instead acted like a kid who’d just been given a way to help his drunk mom. He tossed a “thank you!” over his shoulder as he ran through the widening gap in the fence.
A moment later, the gate clanked and cranked shut behind him. Jazz stood for a moment, catching his breath. He was aware of a box to his left and a camera up high watching the gate, and him. A map of the facility was mounted on a nearby wall, and he pretended to study it, as though unsure of where to go next. As long as the guard could watch him on the camera, he couldn’t do anything too overt, but while arguing with the guard, Jazz had surreptitiously examined the monitor setup. As best he could tell, there were four screens available at any one moment in time, cycling through a variety of cameras. As long as he was careful to keep out of the camera’s range as much as possible, he should be okay.
He stepped under the camera and quickly called Morales, telling her what to do. A few moments later, she pulled up to the gate, her engine loud, distracting the guard, who would be watching as she stretched through her window for the keypad. Couldn’t make it. She’d pulled in too far away.
With exaggerated exasperation, she climbed out of the car and walked to the keypad. She had already removed her jacket and guns. Her shirt—now wet—clung to her, all but guaranteeing that the guard would watch her, not his monitors.
Jazz darted into the camera’s view for a moment, triggering the motion sensor that opened the gate from this side. As the gate cranked open, he kept running, into the shadows where he couldn’t be seen.
Morales pulled in and the gate closed behind her.
They were in.
CHAPTER 52
Wheelchair Man was a young guy, maybe a couple of years out of high school, who couldn’t keep from referring to “a fine sister such as yourself” repeatedly as he wheeled her more slowly than was necessary to terminal four. Connie did her best to ignore him as he kept up a steady stream of increasingly flirtatious patter, but finally couldn’t take it any-more. By now she was in another building entirely, the TSA and the cops far behind her. She hopped up from the chair with ease. “Wow! Thanks! Look, I think it’s better now!” Before he could protest or even register surprise, she grabbed her duffel and headed in the direction indicated by the sign for ARRIVALS. So much for her would-be suitor.
She discarded the glasses in a trashcan and whipped off the bonnet, letting her braids clack around her shoulders as their beaded ends were set free.
She wondered exactly what the clue would be. JFK was huge, and even as specific a location as the arrivals area of a single terminal provided hundreds if not thousands of places to conceal a clue.
Then again, she wondered just how hidden the clue could possibly be. Airports had incredible security, after all. So whoever had hidden the clue couldn’t assume it would stay hidden. So maybe the clue wasn’t something left behind—maybe it was a part of the terminal itself, something that was always there….
Bring cash, the voice had said. So she needed money to access the clue.
She stood in the center of the arrivals area, feeling enormously conspicuous as she turned a slow, mincing circle, taking in everything within her range of vision. At the same time, she tried to prepare a cover story in case some security official approached her. I’m looking for my dad. My boyfriend. My ride. I’ve never been to New York before; just taking it in. They all sounded lame and she wasn’t sure she could sell any of them.
Excuses fluttered out of her mind when her eye caught the sign that said BAGGAGE STORAGE.
Bring cash….
She approached the Baggage Storage desk slowly, feeling as though she were being watched. Then she felt ridiculous. Of course she was being watched. It was an airport. There were probably three video cameras and a bunch of security guys watching her right now. Everyone was being watched.
There were two people working the desk and both of them were harried—the lines were long and unruly. Terminal four was international flights, Connie realized, and in addition to Baggage Storage, this same desk also seemed to offer a variety of services—hotel bookings, currency exchange, and more. The customers were a patchwork of races and ethnicities and accents.
“I need to pick up a bag,” Connie said, taking a wild guess.
“Ticket?” asked the East Asian woman behind the counter.
Crap. “I lost it,” Connie said.